Motorola pushes Zeon through the channel

Distributors

Motorola has said its all-in-one wireless Push To Talk voice, data and GPS service will be sold predominantly through the channel.

Zeon Digital is designed to deliver high quality digital Push-To-Talk (PTT) dispatch services, duplex individual and telephone voice calls, Short Data Service (SDS) messaging and mobile data applications via a single high speed network.

It also provides optional high level encryption services to protect both voice and data communications.

The $50 million network is owned and operated by Motorola and uses the open standards based European TATRA technology.

Motorola Managing Director for government and enterprise, Spiros Nikolakopoulos, said the product was filling a gap in the market that was not being addressed by the mainstream carriers or wireless service providers.

"Most organisations have been making the transition from analogue to digital, and a lot of our SMB customers wanted similar functionality to what the emergency services have but did not have the same amount of money to invest," he said. "They looked at the public network which is obviously better suited to consumer markets, then they looked to us to deliver a solution."

Although some of the public network providers are offering alternate push to talk products, Nikolakopoulos said there was a lot of latency involved in those services.

"Zeon offers the equivalent instantaneous push-to-talk service that the police have or any of the emergency services, so it allows a small organisation to manage a fleet of people out in a field instantaneously," he said.

"It provides an ideal solution for users from SME and B2B, through to mobile workers such as couriers, the hospitality industry and security personnel."

A basic Zeon Digital set up in an organisation starts with three units but can go up to as many as 10,000 units.

The additional GPS functionality of the handset allows the system to integrate with mapping solutions enabling an organisation to track and manage its workforce. It also allows an organisation to respond quickly to dangerous or critical situations.

"We expect 70 to 80 per cent of the distribution through the channel, with the majority of our existing partners having access to the product," Nikolakopoulos said.

"We're also seeking expressions of interest from parties wanting to become a Zeon only distributor, if they have relationships with other equipment vendors that meant they could not sell our other products. We've had some interest already from non-motorola resellers."

Nikolakopoulos said resellers would be offered a trailing commission and a share of the connection fee.

Zeon Digital will operate fixed and variable price communications plans starting from $35 per month depending on the airtime required and the plan selected. The network will initially launch with two specialised two-way radio terminals which start at $349 on a 36-month plan.

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